


Flame (Sunlight Remix)

by Ireliss



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Charles Being Hung Up On Erik While He Fucks Other People, M/M, Other, X-Men Remix 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ireliss/pseuds/Ireliss
Summary: If there’s one thing psionics are intimately familiar with, it’s the feeling of being with someone still hung up over an old flame.Charles and intimacy, from the XMA era all the way up to XMDP.
Relationships: Charles Xavier/Other(s), Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35
Collections: X-Men Remix 2020





	Flame (Sunlight Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bocje_ce_ustu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sunlight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19392766) by [bocje_ce_ustu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bocje_ce_ustu/pseuds/bocje_ce_ustu). 



Telepathy and physical intimacy have always made for uneasy bedfellows. It is a fact of life Charles has always been aware of, even if, sometimes, he might choose to turn a blind eye to it.

Take now, for example. An academic conference is a lovely place to chat someone up, have a bit of fun, part ways amicably and perhaps engage in a collaboration some months down the line. It’s a tried and true formula. Unfortunately for Charles, his lady friend of the night is occupied by other thoughts even as he tries to distract her with clever fingers and an equally clever tongue. The conference that day had not gone well for her; she had been bombarded with multiple tricky questions, and now her mind is busy sinking further and further in a mire of embarrassment even though all she wants to do is to _stop thinking already, pull it together._

Well, Charles reflects wryly, they’ve both had a proper go at it, but sometimes these things just don’t pan out. He tries to offer her a drink and a sympathetic ear afterwards, but she is buried so far in her mortification that all she wants to do is make a hasty exit. Discomfort and resignation glow in her mind like dull, dying embers.

It would have been easy to redirect her thoughts — _calm your mind_ — and smooth away the worst of that unwarranted embarrassment. He could have given her a good night’s sleep and restored her confidence. Two decades ago, Charles would have done it ( _had_ done it before).

These days, he is supposedly older and wiser. With a warm smile, he wheels over to see her off, wishing her well.

***

Then there are other times, usually involving dim bars and more alcohol than is advisable, and the glow of a mind frayed around the edges with heartbreak.

(Charles always had a soft spot for the lonely and the injured. _Saviour complex,_ Raven had scoffed more than once, but that had never stopped him.)

It’s not that Charles deliberately sets out to be someone’s rebound — who would do that? But it’s just — just, there’s something terribly beautiful about a mind caught up in nostalgia and regrets, haloed by the flickering candlelight of unrequited love. It’s something honest and raw and soft all at once. It’s the same quality that draws people towards the genre of tragedy, towards stories of love and loss.

Or maybe it’s something simpler than that.

Charles skims his fingers along the sharp cheekbones of the other man. Blue eyes meet clear grey. Then, those pale eyes slide shut, and the man moves jerkily forward, clutching at Charles like a man drowning in despair would clutch at the bottle. Charles barely needs his telepathy to know that his new friend isn’t thinking about him at all; an entirely different person occupies his thoughts. Which is perfectly fine, of course. Expected, even. If there’s one thing psionics are intimately familiar with, it’s the feeling of being with someone still hung up over an old flame.

Charles himself is much the same.

***

Despite all the complications, at the end of the day Charles is very fond of intimacy. He likes the flirting, the quicksilver flash of thoughts that develop from a playful flame to something darker, hotter. He likes the feeling of another body against his own, sweet friction, the glide of warm lips and tongue. He likes the sensation of admiring fingers tracing across his biceps, smiles exchanged in the dark.

It’s perfectly nice.

There's still something missing.

Not that _that’s_ any surprise; two decades on, and still nothing can compare to the sunlit days at the mansion, back when his whole being had been entwined around another, their minds completely open, passion and desire reverberating back and forth between them in an addictive feedback loop. It could never have lasted. Charles knows that now, with the benefit of hindsight, distance, and far too many years alone with his thoughts. Their love back then had been a tempestuous thing. It was the sort of wildfire that blazes out of control, consuming everything in its path until only ashes remain. Neither of them had been ready.

Their split was for the best, he rationalizes to himself, not for the first time or even the hundredth. He knows firsthand how destructive love can be if you let it consume you — just look at Mother.

Phantom pain twinges in his forehead, a thin hard sliver localised right between his eyebrows.

“You’re pretty tense all of a sudden,” his friend for the evening observes.

“Just a small headache, nothing to worry about.” He darts her a small, sly smile. “Maybe it’s because of sleep deprivation?”

She laughs and smacks his upper arm lightly. Somehow, he ends up flat on his front as deft fingers rub out some of the knots around his neck in an impromptu massage. Charles relaxes into the attention with a smile hidden by the blankets.

This is indeed perfectly nice, and for the moment, he’s content with things the way they are.

***

And then—

The soft trill of birds and insects among the tall Genoshan grass. Corrugated metal walls, lined with shelves and other little signs of domesticity. The murmur of ocean waves outside. Moonlight slanting across their shared bed, painting Erik’s hair silver.

Charles has been content for so long he had forgotten what it felt like to be _happy._

The bond between the two of them is too strong for his joy to be contained inside himself; the corners of Erik’s mouth turn up in that familiar, beloved smile, private and amused, just for the two of them. Charles leans in to kiss him. It still feels unreal that he has Erik right _here,_ barely a handbreadth between the two of them, no more need for long written correspondences where the words unwritten are every bit as important as the ones committed to print.

“Stop thinking so hard, Charles,” Erik murmurs, and Charles shuts him up by kissing him again, harder this time.

Erik’s hair is (even more) charmingly tousled by the time they separate, but there’s a slight flicker of appraisal in his grey eyes. “You’ve picked up some new tricks,” he says mildly.

“So have you,” Charles returns, equally mild, remembering with some fondness on that _thing_ Erik had done with his fingers earlier.

Erik huffs out a low noise. “Yeah.” He is thinking of somebody — Charles catches a glimpse of golden skin, golden eyes — but, for once, Charles doesn’t get the sense that his bedmate is thinking about an old flame.

(If anything, he has the distinct sense that _he’s_ the old flame. It’s a rather novel sensation. Charles thinks he could get used to this.)

“Then I look forward to seeing all your new tricks,” he says serenely, and Erik laughs in response, soft and light in a way that tugs at Charles’ heart.

It feels like coming home, the hearth fire burning steady and warm.


End file.
